‘South Central’: The Right Time, the Right Stuff : Television: With the L.A. riots and the King and Denny cases in the past, the series will likely be weighed for its quality--nothing else. And a good thing, too--it’s got enough going for it.

Television pilots are a dime a dozen but “South Central” was clearly different and provocative from the start.

Using the traditional half-hour comedy length, but actually far more of a dramedy about a struggling black family in the Los Angeles community, it faced a tough road.

The series finally begins pre-production for the Fox Broadcasting Co. in February after getting an order for nine additional episodes--a sizable commitment in today’s nervous TV environment--and the network and producers say it will probably premiere around April.

But when “South Central” surfaced last year as a possible CBS entry--billed by that network as a comedy contender--it was only a year after the Los Angeles riots, with the high-tension Rodney G. King and Reginald O. Denny cases still unresolved.

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And despite the intentions of the creators not to trivialize life in the L.A. neighborhood, there was some perception--including from yours truly--that the show might be seen as exploiting the setting and name of the well-known area at a touchy moment in time. In addition, there was the unknown factor of whether there would be further fallout from the volatile period that might make the comedy format seem inappropriate.

Now, however, a year has passed since CBS first considered “South Central”; the King and Denny cases no longer await an edgy public and the TV series will likely be judged wholly for its quality--nothing else.

And a good thing, too. For with Tina Lifford playing a principled, 35-year-old mother of three who is trying to steer her family to a decent life despite often-trying conditions, “South Central” has enough going for it.

When I viewed the pilot again the other day for the first time since last year, somehow the lack of added tension from the high-profile cases of 1993 worked--at least for me--in the show’s favor. The sense of the ordinary--from the family’s natural interplay to the daily neighborhood hassles--was a plus.

Both Fox and “South Central’s” creators and executive producers, Ralph Farquhar and Michael Weithorn, seem in agreement that the network did not delay the debut of the series to allow more time to pass since last year’s tense Los Angeles situation.

In fact, Farquhar and Weithorn had been enlisted by Fox to work on its “Sinbad” sitcom, which is why the previously announced “South Central” series is just getting underway, with shooting set to begin in March.

Weithorn says that the longer elapsed time between last year’s real-life racial troubles and the debut of “South Central” was not a factor:

“I know the network did not delay the show for that reason. They were in trouble on the ‘Sinbad’ show and asked us to take that show over. And we did so very reluctantly. And we got some concessions out of them for ‘South Central’--that it would air by mid-April. They had said at one point that one of the possibilities was that it would air next summer, and that’s a difficult time for a new show to get launched.”

While acknowledging that “the incidents and uprising had brought the concept of South-Central (Los Angeles) into public consciousness,” Weithorn says he and Farquhar didn’t think it was “relevant as to whether the series catches on. It’s dependent on the characters and whether people invest themselves emotionally in the world we’ve created in the show. And that’s independent of how much South-Central issues are in the news.

“If anything, I guess I prefer that we’re not airing in the midst of the trials because I wouldn’t want to invite the thought that we were trying to capitalize on a hot issue,” Weithorn adds.

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Says Farquhar: “I don’t think the network types are any more at ease with the subject matter of ‘South Central’ now than they would have been four or five months ago. But I think what’s happened in the meantime is that people want a higher quality show.”

Of the challenge of doing “South Central,” Farquhar says: “We invite the skeptics. We want to surprise them. And we want to have that universe of South-Central available to us, all the ups and downs.”

Sandy Grushow, president of the Fox Entertainment Group, is blunt about the timing of “South Central’s” arrival: “The racial climate in Los Angeles had absolutely nothing to do with the launch. If anything, there was some concern on the other side, that the urgency of this series might be mitigated as time passes.

“But I’m comfortable that if we get it on the air in the next three or four months, we will still have a socially relevant TV series. We also think it’s a show for all seasons. Our position has been to support Ralph and Michael in whatever it is their vision dictates. Obviously, we are concerned about broad-based appeal. But all great TV series are true to a singular vision.”

Farquhar and Weithorn seem to have been tenacious in sticking to their vision of what “South Central” should be. Before landing on Fox, they split with CBS because that network apparently wanted a broader comedy. Says Peter Tortorici, executive vice president of CBS Entertainment:

“You’ve got to make a decision on whether you’re doing a comedy or a drama. There’s room at both ends to push the form, as in shows like ‘All in the Family,’ ‘MASH’ and ‘Roseanne.’ And I was looking for that mix in this form. I told them we can do an ‘important’ show or one that gets watched, and I don’t think the two are mutually exclusive.”

According to Farquhar, CBS said the show was “brilliant” and then “chose not to pick it up.” He recalls two phone calls an hour apart during the pilot-selection process. In the first, “They said they loved it, it was moving, it had a strong chance. An hour later, we were told it wasn’t exactly what they were looking for, it wasn’t funny, we misled them.”

Adds Weithorn: “We want to present the realities of life for this family. It does not idealize them or the world in which they live. If it were up to us, (the series) would not be presented to the public as a comedy. Our nightmare is that the network will do promos by taking three or four clips from shows with laughs, leading the public to expect ‘Martin.’

“My hope is that the show will be judged as a show done in half an hour rather than as a sitcom. It will necessarily involve a more complex world and a higher level of melancholy.”